


where the current and the heavens collide

by pendules



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:25:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S6 finale. <i>A part of Cas starts calling out to Dean.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	where the current and the heavens collide

i.

Dean's back by the lake, sitting on the pier this time, legs dangling over the edge. He's waiting.

He waits for a long, long time. And Cas still doesn't come.

It's dark again, this time, the water. He wonders what it'd feel like: to be submerged in it. If it'd be cold, or if it wouldn't feel like anything at all; if it'd be resistant, or if he'd slip through it like air or a vacuum. It's kind of scary, the sheer power of it, that unrelenting, all-consuming blackness and emptiness.

When it was blue, he used to imagine it'd form a cocoon around him, that it would protect him. That it would be safety in the way this dream was safety.

It used to remind him of being held in the gaze of someone who's seen everything there is to see, who's seen his soul, who's quite literally been to hell and back multiple times. It's getting harder to remember, but at some point, that gaze, that look, that fondness in the eyes of an incomprehensible being (for him, just for him, just for that moment), it became comforting instead of disconcerting.

He hasn't felt a lot of comforting physical presences before. He feels like he's started forgetting them all: his mother's arms, her scent of homemade pie and fabric softener, her warm, soft embrace; his father's strong, tense shoulders under his tiny hands; Sammy's smile, catching in his eyes, the ring of his laughter.

He feels like he's trying to hold on to them, but they keep evading him, like the light and like time.

The sky is still blue though, light and bright with wisps of cloud trailing across it. There's no evidence of it on the earth though. It feels like the silent but restless feeling somewhere in the recesses of his mind that he can't admit to, not yet. It feels like hope.

 

ii.

"Dean," is all Sam has to say.

"Sam, _don't_."

"Are we just going to sit here?"

"Yes, we're going to _sit here_ until a job comes our way. And then we'll go deal with something we can actually do something about."

"I can't believe you're just giving up."

"I'm not _giving up_. There's nothing else to do. It's over, Sam. It's too late."

"Are you _serious_?" It's the first time he's raised his voice. "You _owe_ him, Dean."

"I don't owe him anything. He made his choice."

"What, like I made _my_ choice?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about."

"That was different."

"Why was it different?"

"Because you're my responsibility!"

Sam's expression breaks then. He lets out a small sigh, and then then he finally looks at Dean properly, face open, eyes almost pleading.

"Dean," he says, softly. "It's not your fault."

He shakes his head slightly, tired eyes closing for a moment, and then turns and walks out of the room.

 

iii.

He opens his eyes, and he's lying in the grass at the edge of a forest. Through the branches, he can see that a storm is brewing overhead.

He takes shelter under a tree. After a while, the rain stops, but the sky is still dark, covered in ominous, grey clouds.

He doesn't hear him approach, but he hears when he says his name, and Dean turns.

" _Cas?_ " he asks incredulously.

His eyes are as blue as the day he met him, and he smiles a little at Dean's use of his name. Dean knows without a doubt that this isn't the same Cas from their last meeting. This is _his_ Cas.

For a long moment, he doesn't know what to do.

"Are you real?" It seems like a reasonable question to ask.

"Yes, Dean, it's me."

"But – but how? You were gone. You're not –"

"Yes, I'm not me anymore. The me that's out there anyway – he's not. But I'm still inside there somewhere. _This_ part of me."

"How are you here?"

"I think... I'm not entirely certain, but I think you brought me here."

Dean raises his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yes, it's possible."

"Okay... So what do we do now?"

Cas looks at him, and it's still not as solid, as forceful, as he did before. Dean hates, for a second, that this is only a dream. Everything here is just a shadow of what it is in reality.

This Cas, he seems more self-assured, more serene, than the one he knew. But he's not whole. He's not Cas in his entirety. He's just an idea. The real one is the one he'd spoken to on the pier, the one who'd given everything for him once, the one he'd tried and failed to save from himself... the one that was so far-removed from what he was the last time he'd seen him in the real world.

"Take a walk with me," this Cas says.

Dean goes with him, because this is all he has left now.

"You said this is a part of you? Which part?"

"I don't know, Dean. I should probably ask you that."

"Maybe you're the annoying, cryptic part who won't give me any straight answers?"

Cas smiles amusedly and gives a tiny shrug like this is just one great adventure, and Dean's confused again. He thinks about saying sorry, sorry he couldn't stop it, sorry that he let this happen, but he doesn't think it'll mean anything to him, this projection of Cas, _his_ projection of Cas who was still so connected to the real one.

"Do you know how to stop it – him, I mean. Or you, whatever."

"I don't know, Dean. I don't think that's why I'm here."

"Why are you here, then?"

Cas looks at him pointedly.

"Right, because I wanted you here. But I don't know why. My subconscious is a mess, dude."

"Yes, it is," Cas agrees.

Dean stops walking suddenly.

"I don't know how to save you," he says quietly, and he thinks it's the most honest he's been in ages. He drops his gaze; he can't bear to look at him.

He feels a light sensation against his hand, and he realises Cas's fingers are grazing his softly.

He leans in and whispers, "But you already did. So many times."

 

iv.

He tells Sam and Bobby everything when he wakes up.

"This means something, Dean," Sam says, looking intently at him. "You know it."

"Yeah, but I don't know _what_."

"He's calling out to you. He wants you to help him."

"I – I _can't_ , Sam."

"Dean."

"Sam, I just –"

"Dean, you told him he's like family. I know what that means to you. I know what he – Just _try_. Please. You're the only one who can. You know that."

 

v.

He wakes up in his car on the side of an empty road that seems to stretch into infinity. He's only had time to assess his surroundings when Cas is suddenly sitting next to him.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean starts the car, and drives.

"You know, you were wrong," he says after a while. "I haven't been saving you. You've been saving me. And I didn't really know how to deal with that, I didn't know what that even meant, because I think you're the first person who ever really could. So I, uh, I took that for granted. I took you – I mean, I should've helped you deal with this, instead of cutting you out. I mean that. It's not because I'm scared. I mean, I am. I'm scared as hell, but that's not the only reason."

"Thank you, Dean," he says, simply.

"Is that all?" Dean says, finally looking across at him.

"It's not my response you want. But I know you needed to say it, so, yes, I appreciate it. If that's what you need to hear."

"You know you should probably apologise too. I mean, the real you. Whatever."

"That will come later."

"So, I do have to save you, then?"

"You always knew what you had to do."

"You know sometimes I think I'd probably have better luck talking to the wannabe God version of you."

"Maybe you should," he says seriously.

"Uh... do you know what he – you, whatever – is doing right now?"

"Something you don't want to know about, surely."

Dean resists the urge to slam his hands into the steering wheel, takes a deep breath instead.

"Dammit, Cas." They both know he's not talking to the Cas sitting next to him then.

He doesn't say anything, but when Dean turns his head, he's gone.

 

vi.

"We have to do something," Dean says after the silence following his recount of the dream.

"Yeah, we do."

"No, I mean, I – I have to do something. It _is_ my fault."

"Dean –"

"No, it is. And it's his too. But I won't let him deal with it alone."

"Okay."

 

vii.

He's back by the lake.

No one's there.

He doesn't stay this time. He's just passing by.

 

viii.

He's leaning against a car in Bobby's yard when Cas comes the last time.

"I've figured out who you are."

"Really?" he asks, indulgingly.

"Yeah. You're how I see you. I mean, how I _really_ see you. Not as a soldier or an awkward nerd with wings. You're... what I wish you could be."

"And what do you want me to be, Dean?"

"Happy. At peace."

"I want you to be at peace too, you know."

"Yeah, yeah. And maybe I will be... eventually. When I'm dead. But you – you won't die." He smiles grimly. "And I don't think I can bear you being like this forever."

"I don't want that either," Cas finally admits. He looks a little lost and sad.

"Do you think you can get him here?"

"Possibly. Why?" He tilts his head, and this is the first time Dean can remember him actually looking curious.

"I want to show him something," he says evenly.

"Show him what?"

"This," Dean says, and he kisses him.

 

ix.

Cas crashes in Bobby's kitchen, unconscious, two weeks after he took in the souls.

Dean doesn't get to see when he wakes up, because he's asleep in a chair next to the bed, one hand covering Cas's own.

 

x.

When he opens his eyes, he's standing by the lake. He slowly makes his way to the pier. The sun doesn't get into his eyes; the light is pure and clean and unhampering.

The water is blue again, calm and smooth.

When he gets to the edge, Cas is already there.


End file.
